Movie Review: Aquaman

Directed by James Wan, Aquaman was released on Dec. 21 and is one of the most successful DC movies of the past five years making 220 million more than Justice League. Following the abysmal performance of the Justice League movie, Aquaman is a breath of fresh air. Whereas Justice League felt like it was trying to be both dark and light-hearted, which left it feeling like a mess of a movie. Aquaman delivers a fun, and consistent ride with some funny moments and interesting fight scenes. With all of that being said, Aquaman is not a perfect movie, but it does have its moments of greatness.

One of the big differences is that separate this from a lot of modern action movies is its color palette. The reason this is because Aquaman isn’t afraid to have colors in its design. Take Aquaman himself as an example, during his first appearance in Justice League his costume was dark and had little detail to grab the viewer’s attention. Whereas in this movie his costume is bright, interesting and comic accurate to boot.

When it comes to the storyline this movie does have a well-written one. It feels like less the standard action origin storyline and more like an adventure with fascinating and unique locations. The quick pacing of the movie means it moves fast enough to never feel boring or rushed. Although there is one part that feels rushed and that is Aquaman and Mara’s relationship. It doesn’t feel like a natural progression, but more of a relationship on steroids.

Finally one of the best, and worst part of the movie is the acting. Some of the actors like Patrick Wilson, who plays Ocean Master, and Jason Momoa, who plays Aquaman seem like they had a ton of fun acting in this movie. On the other hand some actors like Dolph Lundgren and Willem Dafoe seeming to give no effort at all, this is especially apparent with Dafoe when comparing this to his previous work in the Spiderman franchise.

Overall this movie does some things much better than other superhero movies but has just enough faults to keep it from being a great movie. With all of that considered this is a good movie to see with friends or family. In the end, this movie is a solid 6/10.